Longcase clock with calendar

The construction of the royal observatory in Greenwich, England, begun in 1675, was based on designs by Christopher Wren (1632–1723), formerly Savilian Professor of Astronomy at Oxford University and architect of Saint Paul’s Cathedral and most of the city churches that replaced those lost in the Great Fire of 1666, which destroyed much of London.[1] Late in 1675 Thomas Tompion (1639–1713) was commissioned by Jonas Moore to supply two clocks for use at the observatory by the royal astronomer John Flamsteed (1646–1719). The two year-going clocks, finished in 1676, are slow-beating and have thirteen-foot pendulums.[2] One clock is in the collection of the British Museum, London;[3] the other was returned to the Old Royal Observatory in 1994 after 275 years in private possession. These clocks are said to be accurate to two seconds a day.[4] Replicas are in place on the original site in the wainscoting of the Great Room, or Octagon Room, at Greenwich Observatory.



Pendulums of thirteen feet in length are impractical for most timekeeping; indeed, it proved remarkably difficult to make reliable pendulums longer than about thirty-nine inches, and only the best of the English clockmakers were able to employ them. Although they are extremely rare, Tompion was still making the occasional clock with a longer pendulum about 1700, when the Metropolitan Museum’s longcase clock is thought to have been made.[5] The Museum’s clock, beating at a rate of one and one quarter seconds, requires a pendulum about sixty inches long.



The eight-day, weight-driven movement, with bolt-and-shutter maintaining power, is composed of two rectangular plates that are held apart by six pillars, each latched to the front plate. The going train consists of three wheels and ends in an escape wheel and anchor. Peep holes in the back plate allow a view of the teeth of the escape wheel hitting the pallets of the anchor when the wheel is in motion. The holes are spaced to match the diameter of the small wheel required for a slow-beating pendulum. The striking train consists of four wheels and a fly, which are governed by a count wheel mounted inside the plates on the great wheel. It strikes the hours (I–XII) on a single bell mounted at the top of the front plate. The number “344” is stamped near the lower edge of the back plate, and it appears twice more scratched on the back of the dial plate.



The basic proportions of plinth, trunk, and domed hood of this clock conform to the evolving architectural design for longcase clocks, which was adopted by clockmakers in late seventeenth- to early eighteenth-century London. The design of the case is restrained but elegant in detail. Eight matched panels of walnut veneer on the door to the trunk are framed by half-round walnut moldings, and the geometry of their shape is emphasized by the continuous strings of inlaid dark and light woods. Comparable designs of veneer and inlay organize the surfaces of the two sides of the trunk and all three visible sides of the plinth. The forward-sliding hood has a hinged, wooden-framed glass door and is flanked by applied wooden columns with simple Tuscan capitals. Panes of glass and quarter-round columns complete the sides. These support a fretwork frieze surmounted by a cornice and a second fretwork frieze below an imposing double dome with three vase-shaped, carved wooden finials. The eleven-inch-square dial and the convex molding that supports the hood suggest that the case probably belongs to the same period as the movement, and the case is, in fact, numbered “27 / 344” on the upper edge of the door to the trunk. The cabinetmaker is unknown.



When the clock came as a gift to the Museum, the lower half of the pendulum shaft and the bob were missing. These elements were replaced by new parts. The holes for the arbors of the striking train were found to have been rebushed, but the wheels and pinions are original. A damaged spring for the bell hammer was noted, as was the replacement of the hour hand. Otherwise, the movement was intact, and it was put in running condition.



The hood of the case had suffered from an exceptionally dry atmosphere in New York, and it required reconstruction, as did the plinth. The latter was strengthened by the application of interior wooden supports. The skirting seemed original to the clock, but surviving evidence showed that the clock had originally had four bun feet. The present feet were made by the Museum’s wood conservators. The two finials on the front of the hood are replacements.



The earliest known reference to this clock appears in the 1926 sale catalogue of the Frank Garrett Collection.[6] Irwin Untermyer acquired it from R. W. Symonds during the same year.



Notes (For key to shortened references see bibliography in Vincent and Leopold, European Clocks and Watches in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. NY: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2015)



[1] For a lively account of the founding of the Royal Observatory, see Howse 1980, pp. 19–44. See also entry 23 in this volume.

[2] Howse 1970–71.

[3] Inv. no. 1928,6-7.1. See Thompson 2004, pp. 80–83.

[4] Ibid.

[5] For the dating, see J. L. Evans 2006, pp. 71, 78, no. 344.

[6] Anderson Galleries 1926, pp. 36–37, no. xviii, ill